Skip to main content

When All is Calm


The song, "Silent Night," has intrigued me for years. Just consider these words:

 Silent night, holy night 

 ALL IS CALM...

 Is "calm" a foreign word? Let's define it:
"Undisturbed by passion; not agitated or excited; quiet; tranquil; as the mind, temper, or attention."

 All is calm...

 Maybe "calm" is plain English, but the concept is rare. How do we get to that place? God knows the way, but we may have become too busy to allow Him to show us how to get to calm. After all, we have cookies to bake, gifts to wrap, cards to send, concerts to attend...

 All is not calm under these conditions. Calm doesn't like crazy.

 Christmas is the only birthday celebration known to man where the Guest of Honor is so steadfastly ignored. During this season of run-run-go-go-do-do-do, Christ is often forgotten, and the calmness that comes from time in His Word is forfeited. 

 A starved soul is an agitated soul. The solution? Feed your soul as you do your body: regularly. Daily. Without the Word of God, we are anything but calm.

 Pause. Grab your Bible and sit down. Hug it. Read. Pray. Thank God for His "unspeakable gift." Don't rush this process. You have all day to run like a marathoner. Please pause.

 Missing out on the calm that God provides is like missing a flight because you didn't give yourself enough time to get to the airport. The ticket is yours, but poor planning can rob you of a seat.

 Silent night, holy night. All is calm...

 With Christ, all is calm, even when everything around us is not.

 "Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors." 
Proverbs 8:34

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Parents Are Not Responsible for That

Parenthood is not a role for wimps or whiners. There are the exciting times such as music recitals, sports tournaments, and graduations. But if your tribe is like ours, you've probably also had the maddening moments, like the time one of our children discovered how to unfasten the tapes on his diaper and used the contents as "chalk" on the bedroom  wall (yes, it was "his," so that narrows the field of suspects). Children are young for a few blinks, and then we spin around and we're hearing "Pomp and Circumstance," that familiar graduation march as our "babies" walk down the aisle in cap and gown. If they choose to go on to college, four snaps later, we're sitting in the auditorium at their college graduation, scanning a long list of names in the commencement bulletin while waiting to watch them walk across the platform to receive yet another diploma. It's warp-speed fast (except that diaper stage). Parents don't min
45 comments
Read more

What Just Happened?

I find myself praying in questions lately. "Lord, what just happened here?" (This time last month, we were walking a sandy beach in Florida, calling it our "last anniversary vacation.") "Did you REALLY take my Norman ALREADY ?" (I spent way too much time on Google, and all the articles said that Norman had a chance of surviving at least a year.) " LORD , are you SURE I can endure all this excruciating pain?" (I'm certain that I cannot bear this, but obviously, if I'm typing, I'm still bearing this somehow. Only God.) The last anniversary vacation Now here's what I do not want after you've read this: platitudes. Absolutely no platitudes. (Platitude: Overused statement applied liberally and repeatedly in an attempt to comfort or instruct. Paraphrased definition.) Example: "Heaven is getting sweeter." I understand that this is a phrase from a song, and it is not offensive in any way. It j
26 comments
Read more

Wait-Hate

Sitting at what I was sure was the world's longest left-turn signal, I suddenly realized that I was being impatient for no good reason. After all, I was only waiting to turn left and then right...into the gas station. Not exactly like being late for an important date! Wait hate. Many of us struggle with it, and the impatience is making life unnecessarily miserable. Why do we hate to wait? I have some theories and good guesses, but it is possible that one of the biggest reasons why we can't even tolerate driving in a lane with a slow car in front of us is because we've been trained by our culture to expect everything instantly. Have you ever been "that person," driving and yelling "Move over, Pokey Joe!" even though your windows were closed and that other driver couldn't hear you? Tap. Swipe. Send.  Wait-Hate is learned, and this impatience is very costly. Instead of praying and allowing God time to provide direction and confirm
22 comments
Read more